


After the Party

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-15
Updated: 2006-04-15
Packaged: 2019-01-19 11:36:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12409581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Lily has ignored James for six years and is convinced he hates her, and fancies her best friend, Hestia Jones. After the party, her theory is somewhat disproved....





	After the Party

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

** After the Party **

It was after the party. The last dance had been saved, usually forgotten and then spun through in a burst of energy and strobe lights. The slurred sounds of overexcited teenagers running the corridors were beginning to dim. The dull clunk of empty bottles being collected into black bin liners by responsible adults was slowing. The night was quivering, on edge. It was on a high from six hours of sweat, smoke, drink and rhythm. The heavy beats seemed to pulse on through the walls, although the DJ was packing up. The air was thick.

Everyone had dispersed to different rooms. The lights were flickering out, one by one. In a small living room, five people were unrolling sleeping bags, staggering into pyjamas and fighting over beds. Hestia Jones and Margola Prewitt had taken the one sofa. Lily Evans had the chair next to it. She knew she was imagining it, through a cloud of Puddlevodka and mead, but she felt on the fringes of their friendship, like the lone point in the scalene triangles they studied in trigonomagical Arithmancy. James Potter had some sofa cushions arranged like a mattress on the floor. He was an incongruous figure in the group, Lily thought idly. He was Quidditch Captain, in the year above all the others and Head Boy; not the kind of person who would be expected to hang around with a group of sixth years. But then, he had been shadowing Hestia all night, causing Lily painful but clandestine pangs of jealousy. Peter Pettigrew had passed out on the pool table some hours previously, and was just beginning to stir, his shadow moving on the acid green felt. 

Hestia was taking off her make-up and giggling with Margola about how they should share their one duvet. She was slim and blonde, effortlessly beautiful in her short blue dress-robes. Lily could see why James had been following her with minimum subtlety around the dance floor all evening. She sighed, and wriggled into her sleeping bag. Peter grunted and his eyes peeled open blearily, but could not sustain the effort and slipped back into oblivion. Hestia and Margola were snuggling down under their duvet, top and tail, and were still talking and laughing. James had his wizard’s hat over his face, lying spreadeagled on the floor. Lily watched the paleness of his upper arms, milky in the harsh light, until she hopped awkwardly over in her sleeping bag to switch it off.

The atmosphere tautened palpably with the flicker of the neon into complete darkness. Lily’s first thought was how uncomfortable a chair was to sleep in. She curled up in various positions, her sleeping bag making a self-conscious stroking noise every time she moved. Using the noise Peter made as he woke up and reached for his bottle of water, she slipped off the chair onto the floor, and lay on the floor instead, using a grey sweatshirt as a pillow. She was top and tail with James now, although he lay at an angle so the end of his sleeping bag pointed towards her chest. Lily lay as still as she could, hating the whispered conversation ongoing on the sofa behind her head. She could not bear to rustle the folds of the heavy, velvet curtain of air. 

The soft stroke of sleeping bag against carpet pulsed through Lily’s ears before she felt it. James was gently nudging her stomach with his feet through the two quilted layers. They nudged regularly, and Lily could barely stop herself from squirming, edging herself a little nearer. As this motion continued, her body became charged, her back arching as her toes slid past his head and her eyes were level with his waist. Her hand was out of the sleeping bag now, and on the carpet. His edged nearer. Her stomach tautened with excitement. James Potter didn’t hate her. Their hands met with a tingling sensation that crept up her nerves, toying with her insides. But he dropped it. It lay on the carpet again, flooding Lily with despair. Was he dismissing her, after making her believe that this was utterly real? But the hand snaked back and spread its warm pressure over hers. Her spine relaxed. 

Fingers traced whorls on palms, delicately sweeping the contours of each other. His pale arm stretched out and drew his hand nearer her face and began a gentle caress, softly exploring the soft skin of her neck, and over her eyelids. Then his fingertips pulled down the pillow of her lower lip, and slid his fingers inside her mouth. Lily was surprised; nobody had ever done this before, although she had been out with a few boys. She allowed her tongue to trace the outlines, the nails, the patterns of the prints, slowly enjoying the game. His hand withdrew lazily and the nerve receptors tingling in her skin followed it down into her pink tee shirt and over her breast. She felt a creeping sensation of happiness that his strong white hand could not quite hold the whole fruit, and began to stretch upwards to run her own fingers through his dark hair. Feeling his pleasure in his breaths, Lily felt the room grow warmer.

Now his hand was caressing her abdomen, and she felt the familiar uncomfortable groaning in the pit of her stomach, feeding on her insecurities. But James went downwards, slipping under the gap between the waistband and her skin, held up by her hipbones. He was very skilled; the steady stream of girlfriends had obviously refined his technique. Lily arched her spine and squirmed with pleasure. It was strange not being able to utter a word, with the threat of slumbering friends on all sides. Normally Lily never stopped talking, but this purely physical connection in the dark was beautifully simple. The one agonising stab in the back of her consciousness was that soon she would have to reciprocate. She couldn’t imagine doing so without the ability to speak, to be reassured, to adjust. The electricity in the hot space between them was coursing across, bridging the gap. The black light revealed only the shadows of smiles.

James lifted his sleeping bag around waist height, and Lily slid her hand underneath as he stroked her face and lips again. She allowed her fingers to pressure the muscular, chalk-white stomach that she had observed earlier, and probed slowly downwards, touching the sudden growth of hair, and praying that she had attracted him enough. She was rewarded, and when he eased her face nearer, she was happier to oblige than usual. The room seemed almost sacrosanct, and the silence was heightening the excitement. Behind her lids, Lily’s eyes could see but not hear red lights exploding like fireworks.

Holding her face in both strong hands, James pulled her up so that finally their faces were on a level. She slid her legs around so they were in a more conventional attitude, lying next to each other, at peace. Knowing that this would seal the intimacy of the night, Lily waited for James to ease her lips towards his. When they connected, she felt the pit of her stomach might detonate with pure joy. Lips and tongues were so in tandem that the kiss was effortless, like one of an established relationship. The thick curtains of air were swirling around them, sometimes lifting their blackness as the embers of dawn glowed through the window. Allowing her lids to glide back, Lily could see the brown pools of James’ own eyes, looking back at her. 


End file.
